Cebu Pacific eyes flights to Australia and Brunei

Cebu Pacific has filed a petition before the Philippines’ Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) to offer flights to Australia and Brunei.

The petition came after the Philippines recently concluded its expanded air service agreements with the two countries.

“We are very interested to operate flights to Australia and Brunei. We’ve been asking for entitlements so that we can offer low fares to these markets,” airline vice-president for marketing Candice Iyog said in the Manila dailies.

Cebu Pacific is seeking for 540 seat entitlements for a thrice-weekly Manila-Sydney flights, 300 seat entitlements for a twice-weekly Manila-Melbourne flights and 360 seat entitlements for a twice-weekly Manila-Brisbane flights.

Since dominant legacy carrier Philippine Airlines has no direct flights to Brunei and is currently on a code-share agreement with Royal Brunei Airlines, Cebu Pacific has also applied for the “designation as official Philippine carrier to Brunei”.

Under the recently amended air services pact between the Philippines and Brunei, there are now an allowable seven flights a week from Manila, two from Cebu and one from Clark Freeport in Pampanga, serving Bandar Seri Bagawan in Brunei and vice versa. Furhermore, the number of local airlines connecting both countries has been increased from one to two carriers.

Joshua Tan